Michael F. Cannon from The Cato Institute writes about the trickery involved by Democrats in estimating how much the behemoth known as ObamaCare will cost and what the real cost of the Socialism will be:

One gimmick makes the new entitlement spending appear smaller by not opening the spigot until late in the official 10-year budget window (20102019). Correcting for that gimmick in the Senate version, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) estimates, When all this new spending occurs  i.e., from 2014 through 2023  this bill will cost $2.5 trillion over that ten-year period.

Another gimmick pushes much of the legislations costs off the federal budget and onto the private sector by requiring individuals and employers to purchase health insurance. When the bills force somebody to pay $10,000 to the government, the Congressional Budget Office treats that as a tax. When the government then hands that $10,000 to private insurers, the CBO counts that as government spending. But when the bills achieve the exact same outcome by forcing somebody to pay $10,000 directly to a private insurance company, it appears nowhere in the official CBO cost estimates  neither as federal revenues nor federal spending. Thats a sharp departure from how the CBO treated similar mandates in the Clinton health plan. And it hides maybe 60 percent of the legislations total costs. When I correct for that gimmick, it brings total costs to roughly $2.5 trillion (i.e., $1 trillion/0.4).

Heres where things get really ugly. TPMDCs Brian Beutler calls the $2.5-trillion cost estimate a doozy of a hysterical Republican whopper. Not only is he incorrect, he doesnt seem to realize that Gregg and I are correcting for different budget gimmicks; its just a coincidence that we happened to reach the same number.

Shout it from the mountains on out to sea
(out to the sea)
No two ways about it, people have to be free
(they got to be free)
Ask me my opinion, my opinion will be
(ah-ha)
It’s a natural situation for a man to be free

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.